Mojave Chronicles: The Path of the Courier
by D3ATH666132
Summary: Courier Jason O'Reiley, after a bullet to the head - wants answers. Join him as he meets friends, foes and creatures across the Mojave, searching for the answers to his past... the truth about him. Sunny Smiles/The Courier - Sorry for not updating for such a long time! Renewing the Chapters and continuing on with the adventure of the Mojave Chronicles: Path of the Courier!
1. Chapter 1 A Good Day In Goodsprings

Fallout New Vegas

The Real Vegas Voyage

Prologue

A Good Time in Goodspring's

* * *

><p><em>Luck…<em>

_A thing that gets you the chips at any casino in New Vegas, a thing that keeps you alive in a brawl, a thing that gets you the girl, a thing that everyone has in any and all quantities in them._

_However, with what is happening to young courier of a poor delivery service called 'Mojave Express', a kid called Jason O'Reiley, one with hardly anything to live for, is being held hostage, in the middle of nowhere in one of the most dangerous places in the west, it wasn't what he had indeed, thought to be called..._

_"Lucky"…_

His vision came to him in a blur at first. His eyes were adjusting to the dark and light around him, and started to feel his body bring itself to reality.

He began to notice a lot of things in a moments notice: his throat was dry; his stomach hurt with hunger; new cuts and bruises stung across his open skin; he tasted the coppery tang of blood; and felt the tight tug of duct tape stabbing into his flesh around his lips.

Jason drunkenly tried to speak... call for help, but the tape just made a pathetic muffled rasp. He tried to move... struggling to ring his hands free, but rope binds kept him at bay. His feet were roped together too... he was stuck on his knee's in darkness, exposed to the dangers of his surroundings.

He felt a sudden sting in the back of his head… a swollen bruise tingled with prickling pain, then suddenly he drooped in and out of reality. As if he'd been drugged or something... had he been drugged? He couldn't remember... everything was a blur.

_What the hell's happening..._

He cried out in pain as the drugs wash over him, making his head split into two, as if he was waking up to a killer hangover.

His vision slowly returned to him. He could see it was night-time - from what he could gather from his haze of drugs - seeing the infinite spectrum of stars that hung overhead in the night sky ever so brilliantly.

"_W-Whe… Where, Th-the hell… am I?_" he mumbled helplessly to himself.

His eyes were cast away from the sky as his head dropped like a rock. Catching the sight of another light source next to him. A small one by any means. A lantern lay beside what was appearing to him as a shallow hole in the ground, then a pile of dirt gathered behind it... further away he spotted new moving shadows a few meters away.

He tried struggling out from his bonds, parting his hands as far apart from one another and trying to tear away the bind he was in, but to no avail, he only let it bite into his flesh more and more.

"Hmm, guess who's waking up waking up." An unfamiliar voice spoke aloud, noticing him.

_A person! Maybe he could tell him where the hell he was? Why the hell he was tied up? Why the hell was he here? Why something like this is happening to him_?

He got a look at them now: about five bare barrel-chested men; wearing black leather-head jackets and dusty grey trousers; wearing skull caps and tribal hats on their heads…

_Skull caps? _Jason wasn't thinking so positively now about a rescue from these new men... more of them closed in towards him. Jason felt his heart begin to beat faster.

They moved at him like savages: every step sluggish; knee-bent; hunched-forward; their pale faces shone in the lanterns light; either bearing long-trimmed beards, or unsettled mats that hung from their heads. Some even had tattoos of wild creatures darting across their faces and arms.

Then he heard a lighter opening and igniting… He looked up and saw the lighter, its flame lit up by the end of a burning cigar, held in the hand of another man hidden in the dark.

He took a long inhale of the rich smoke, then said: "Time to cash out." throwing the lit cigarette on to the ground.

He was flanked by two men by his sides: the one on his right; was a tall man with dark skin, short hair and a pronounced mustache who wore like the others, a leather-jacket over a white shirt, with a ragged band covering his head, scowling at the man.

"Can we get this over with?" he fumed..

The one on his left; a man with paled skin and bright ginger hair, with a short-trim beard and a large mohawk, with a shovel in his hands, seemed to scowl at the sight of the man too.

"Maybe Khans kill people without lookin' 'em in the face." Shooting a sidelong glance at the guy on his left, adding, "But I ain't a fink, dig?"

_Khans…_ _What the hell is going on? Did he just say 'kill'?_

"You just made your last delivery, kid. Sorry you had to get twisted up in the scene..." the man spoke out, beginning his sentence as he held out a small item in his fingers.

_A chip?_

This man was different though. He spoke clear, mannered, with a hint of class, but the way he was saying the words… scared him. Jason hadn't realized this but. He was shivering.

Not because of the cold night, not from the wind. It was the new man's voice that scared him. He didn't know why… but he would soon enough.

He managed a look on the man without the narcotics wearing him down long enough to take a good look at him.

He was definitely different to the leather-jockeys that surrounded him, not partaking in their savage clothing and rather taking on a classy, Pre-War sketched suit of red-stripes to bear.

"Now, I know what you're thinkin', kid. From where you're kneelin', this must seem like an 18-karat run of bad luck." He finished, adding suspense across his side-kicks; who couldn't to wait any longer.

Jason was knelt down, unable to do anything in these binds. His eyes wide open, watching the man helplessly as he realized what they were going to do...

The man in the suave suit pulled out of his suits inner pocket; a pristine and finely-tuned pistol, carved unlike anything he had seen in his life, a beautiful weapon… the narcotics were washed away enough so he could notice the fine artwork of what seemed to be of a man, with a name written in a baroque style… _Maria_. And he aimed it at his head.

Jason shook violently, struggling to get out of his bonds in his drugged haze._ He was going to __**kill him**_!

"Truth is... Game was rigged from the start." He said.

_That's what he was gonna kill him for? __**A PLATINUM CHIP**_?

That was the last couple of words he will ever hear or think, before he died.

The bullet landed in Jason's head, fulfilling total blackness in his eyes for an eternity, taking him on the spot… the shot echoing across the Mojave Desert, attracting the ears of all that heard its deadly echo, and the round dropped him dead on the earth.

They would put a bag over his head, bury him in the shallow hole, and would leave him for good, never to see his face again…

* * *

><p>Sunny Smiles sat on a chair in the Prospectors Saloon, wearing her accustomed, dark brown leather armor with a shot-glass full of warm pure water in her hand after another early morning watch, looking out the side window into the pitch-black night when she heard something outside; a gunshot.<p>

Her hand reached for her gun almost instantly - "What the…" _who would be out and about at this hour_?

Could be Joe and his crew of misfits. Maybe a random raider. Or the NCR soldiers up north near the quarry... Too many options out here in this hellhole.

But this seemed out of the ordinary even for the Mojave ... Maybe she could take a look at who it was… she bit her lip down in thought; and decided.

Sunny gulped down her shot of water in a second, before she grabbed her varmint rifle lying next her, while whistling her friend Cheyenne - a grey and black fur-coated dog - to come to her side, then got off her chair in the corner of the Saloon, then made her way to the door.

"We going out at this time a night already, sweetie?" said the tender voice of Trudy, the proprietor of Goodspring villages bar and beverage accommodation, the Prospector's Saloon, wiping down a pristine clean shot glass.

"I thought I heard something outside, sounded a lot like a firearm." Sunny said, priming her Varmint rifles recoil-pump back, and fed it with a magazine of 5.56mm rounds at its ammo-mouth.

"Oh, don't get so worried about it… it'll be that damn Joe Cobb and his Gangers fouling up a caravan again on the Highway…" Trudy said, filling a glass with a fresh amount of ginger-hot whiskey for herself.

Sunny turned and looked at Trudy as she gulped the beverage down her gullet in one.

_If it was Joe, then where are the hoots and hollers, or the gunshots in the air from victorious plunder of another one of those poorly armed caravans?_

"Joe can't have done it. His gang needs to pump a few extra rounds in their targets for a giggle, and not just some one simple pea-shot. No, I don't think it'll be him Trudy." Sunny deducted, swinging open the old western door of the Saloon, and met the cold wind of night face-first, before shutting the door behind her. She began heading to the origin of the shot.

She looked around, trying to see where she was, and where she thought she heard the shot…

_North. North-East. _That's where she heard it come from…

_Strange... that's where the graveyard is..._ _No-one should really be up in the grave-yard at this time of night?_

It was way beyond the point of midnight, with the moon full in the star-filled sky above her, and she saw no signs of any of the locals houses left alight with light. So, no-one in the town was visiting the graves... so it wasn't them.

Who could be up their then? Raiders? NCR... _Legion_? They shouldn't be up here? She imagined the worst...

She could see a single source of light at the top of the mountainous hill, seeing the giant water-tower at the far end of it. Silhouettes too far to depict who or what they are. But they were leaving... and with it the light from the hill went out, and it came to be pitch-black night.

"Cheyenne, come on, let's go." Sunny said to her faithful companion, who barked eagerly in reply.

She and Cheyenne made their way up to the Goodspring's Graveyard, trekking past a few of the old-time houses and further up the smoothed earthen hill path ahead of her, getting steeper the higher she went up the hill.

She slowed as she got near the top - hoping she could gain the advantage of surprise over whatever was up there - aiming her rifle up ahead, Cheyenne growled... always a sign of danger. She hushed the dog, easing her with a simple stroke as she gathering the confidence to make it over the hill and face the intruders.

_She does not know what was up there, what they were doing, and who they answer to… but she was scared, shivering in the cold as she went up the hill._

Why she was doing this… not for an appropriation of peace around her little home of homes, no, she felt compelled going up there for some reason. What it was, was beyond her. All she knew that if she didn't do it, it would mark her for life. If it was Legion... then Goodsprings was in dire trouble...

She rushed up the hill"All right freeze-"she cut her sentence when nobody was there.

_Damn. Just missed them._

She waited a moment, unsure if they had set up an ambush... walked to where they had left their dimming lantern on. After a few moments of total silence and heart-pounding uncertainty, she let out a sigh of relief.

"Look's like their gone Cheyenne. Come on, just my mind playing tricks on me." she concluded, turning back to the Saloon when Cheyenne let out a whine.

Sunny turned and knelt beside Cheyenne, "What is it girl?" Cheyenne was sniffing around the lantern.

It was then she smelt the cigars odour... almost tripped on a few empty bottles of Sarsaparilla. Cheyenne was on to something...

Sunny crouched down searching for clues. But all she found were a few used rich cigars... Not one person from this part of the Mojave would have these kinds of smokes here.

So what were they doing here?

Suddenly, she saw movement beside her and jumped… but it was a hand, sticking out of the ground, and a pair of legs…

"What the f-!"

Someone has been buried here.

Sunny quivered, shaking in sudden fear of the sight… was her eyes playing tricks on her… or was it moving? No... No-one would be cruel enough to bury someone alive… but then... no-one would live to be buried...

Again! It was there, a twitch of its fingers. Cheyenne barked and whined at the hand, starting to dig where it was attached to its body, buried below the ground.

"Jesus Christ! He's alive. Oh my god! I've got to get him out!" Sunny cried, dropping her rifle and starting to shift the dirt that covered the body of this poor person.

_Hang in there… __**Hang in there!**_

The more she dug with her palms, the more she saw of the person who was buried in it. First seeing that they wore decent traveler clothing, a grey shirt with some dark brown trousers, and then she saw that it was a he... with a bloody bag over his head.

She quickly and gingerly removed it over his head. And saw he was ruined with stain of red blood that was bleeding from his head…

_How... how can he be alive?_ Sunny could see the body twitching again - "He's… alive!" she stumbled back, her eyes wide and her heart beating out of her chest, she fell back in disbelief of what she was seeing.

This guy was looking more like he was dead than he was alive… paled skin, blood streaked across his forehead and cheeks, veins showing on his skin, and dirt mated on the sides of his face. The only tell-tale thing of possible life that showed was the slight movement of his fingers, the twitching, and the fact that he was breathing.

Sunny couldn't believe it… but for this guy's sake, she needed to toughen up and help him... she needed help. She needed...

_Doc Mitchell!_

She gathered her strength to bring him to Doctor Mitchell - hopefully he could help him out more than she could - "Okay Cheyenne, let's get this little guy to Mitch." She said, cringing as she hooked her arms underneath the man's legs, and back, before pulling them up in her arms, struggling to maintain her hold and balance at the weight of this guy.

_Jeez… this guy is too fat with all of them bullets in his head_. She joked. Probably just to take the edge off the situation, but only just.

Sunny limped her way down to Goodspring's - the survivor in tow - with Cheyenne panting beside her, going in circles around her and the guy, barking and whining.

"Go on Cheyenne, get the Doc!" she whistled.

It felt like ages, and she may have thought that this guy wasn't worth it… maybe he would be dead on her way to the Doc's house? But that would be wrong... to wrong for her to let it pass as a stranger was dying in her hands. She needed to do this. She needed to help.

So she kept going, and she felt something odd on her face…

Were those tears? She was crying! Whatever for? She didn't know this guy; he wasn't in any relation to her neither as a friend nor as blood. So why was she crying? Was she crying because she was scared? Was it because this guy was nearly dead in her arms as she tried to save him?

Too many thoughts... not enough time for answers...

She looked at him as she was reaching the first of the houses in Goodspring's, seeing what hadn't been ruined with his bleeding head-wound…

He had light-tanned skin, much like hers, his eyes was hidden underneath his eye-lids, but he was skinny, having a lanky, but muscular appearance about him. With short, black buzz-cut hair, that cropped across his forehead, and trimmed sideburns going down the side of his head.

_What was it about this guy that made her wonder...?_

Her thoughts subsided as she walked up the small hill to Doc Mitchell's, seeing the bug-zapper outside his run-down household, buzzing at his doorstep where Cheyenne scratched and barked at.

"Doc! Doc!" she cried, carrying the man over her shoulder, while she hammered the door with her now free hand.

The door opened and revealed an old, wrinkled man with balding grey hair, wearing his dirty night-clothing, rubbing his dried eyes after being rudely awoken.

"Sunny? Why have you called me at this at this time o'…" he started, gruffly speaking in his dreary tone, before noticing the bloody man she was carrying.

"Oh my." He said, and opened the door even further, urging her to come inside with him.

"Put him down on the bed, and let's see what we got." Mitchell urged, hurrying to get to the bleeding man.

Sunny came into the house, made a right in a wooden hallway, and entered what passed as the Goodspring's 'hospital', full of scientific and medical equipment, nursing bed and peculiar, homely junk.

Sunny gingerly laid the man on the bed inside the room, kneeling by him, shivering unbelievably.

"Sunny…"

"I-I I, heard a-a gunshot earlier… it-it, it came from the Graveyard… and I saw this g-guy half buried into the ground…" she cried, cupping her dirty hands over her crying eyes, feeling so frightened.

"You're in shock dear, now calm down, please. Now, start slowly with deep breaths… what's wrong with him?" Mitchell said, hugging her carefully.

"H-H-He got shot, in-in-in the h-head… b-b-but he's still-ll alive!" she cried, stuttering her words as she cried them out along with her tears.

"Okay… I'm gonna have a look at him now, and I need you to wait in the other room. This is gonna be a little messy… and I think you've seen enough for tonight. Okay." He said, patiently so that Sunny wouldn't be caught up again in shock.

She quivered and slowly dragged herself out of the doctors room, laying on the couch next door and crying into its cushions for the rest of the night, not knowing what for while the Doctor proceeded with the process of extracting the bullet from this poor fellows head, and he was still very much indeed… **_Alive_**.

* * *

><p><em>Four days passed<em>…

Jason had no idea what was going on. It was all a blur… he couldn't tell what was black and white, color or mirage, true or false. He couldn't remember a thing of what happened that night…

All that he could feel now, was one helluva headache.

"What the…" he began, rising from what he felt was a warm bed mattress.

Sunlight burned his eyes as they passed through the blinds of a window. Soon he adjusted and was rising from his bed.

"Hey... You're awake. How about that." The words register in the Jason's mind.

He jolts at the new voice, and becoming very aware of his surroundings though he still begins to sit up. Strong gloved hands caught him by the wrists. Gently pulling him up into a sitting position on the bed he had been laying in. He didn't have the strength to struggle, his entire body felt numb. He couldn't feel anything.

He got an immediate look at where he was. He was inside a near-ruined house: laid on a hot, stinking sweaty mattress ruined by his own perspiration, where he was surrounded by what he could guess was a home-makeshift hospital, where there were medical tools laid on a tray on a small wheeled table next to him, other tables holding chemistry equipment, crates on the floor, writing-machines, medical clipboards, even medical magazines were trailed all over the place. Jason could see shelves and shelves stacked with odd-looking items: syringes; crutches; a weird looking device with energy batteries laid beside it; and… food, of all the odd things he has been seeing.

"Easy there now. It's okay. You're safe." Jason glances up gingerly, finding an elderly, balding man with a moustache sitting in a chair by him looking back at him.

He was sweating, his brow trickling down with droplets of beady perspiration, his entire body was soaked in it… the air around him was hot and humid too, and it felt like he was in the middle of the desert…

But from what was coming together in his mind… he could be.

"Take it easy... You've been out cold a few days now. Relax for a minute. Take deep breaths. Get your bearings." He commands. Then Jason gives him a small nod, doing as he was told. Sure enough, the deep breathing helped to calm him down, somewhat, though his head was still pounding slightly. He had no idea what was going on, and it was scaring him a bit.

"Let's see what the damage is... Can you tell me your name?" The man asks. Jason closes his eyes, trying hard to focus, trying to remember his own name.

The thought was distant. But in his mind he felt something '_click'_.

"… J-Jason… Jason O'Reiley." He wheezed out dryly.

"You were pulled out of a grave you know, before Sunny over there pulled you out with her own bare hands." He said, shot a glance in the direction of the living room nearby, where a ginger-haired girl in leather - Sunny - was sleeping on the couch.

_He was buried? God-Dammit... he must have got Lady Luck on his side!_ His mind raced at the thought of being buried… it chilled him to the bone of it happening to him without even realizing it, and for the better part of it, he was kind of glad about that.

_But wait_..._ why can't he remember?_

"The names Doctor Mitchell, welcome to Goodspring's Jason, now, I hope you don't mind, but I had to go rootin' around in your noggin there to make sure I got all the lead out of your face... I take pride in my needlework, yeah, but maybe you'd better take a look for yourself. Make sure I didn't leave anything out of place."." He said, handing him a mirror to look at.

Jason took the mirror hesitantly... and eventually looked at his reflection through the mirror, and saw black buzz-cut hair and sideburns. His tanned skin shone with sweat, and that his paled-blue eyes sparkled in the light. He also saw an interestingly scar that lined across his brow. He saw his thickened chin, the near-protruding cheekbones, and the slightly large nose.

"How'd I do?" he asked.

"Thank you... Thank you so much…." Jason admitted. He looked again in disbelief at the mirror. He looked like hell.

He coughed out terribly, feeling of the dryness in his throat as he did.

"Hang on... I'll fetch ya a drink. Just wait here." Mitchell said, going out of the room.

Jason took his time stroking his facial features to check they were all attached... and real. Everything else around him though just made him feel nauseous and gave him more of a headache.

Soon enough Mitchell came back in, with a smile and a glass of cloudy water. "Here take this. It'll help."

Jason cocked an eyebrow. "Is it safe to drink?"

"Yes... just don't drink a lot. That's the cleanest water you'll get at the moment." he chuckled. Jason just looked at him, hoping he was joking.

No dice.

_Oh well... better than nothing I guess._Jason took a sip of the drink, the result left him with a horrid taste in his mouth.

"Drink up, it'll do you good to get some water in your system." Mitchell smiled generously, and Jason responded in kind by swallowing the glass full.

The taste was horrid, like he was drinking wet mud, but at least he felt better. He felt a lot better, he could feel his muscles and nerves come back to him. He stretched and flexed his arms, feeling the limp limbs getting limber again.

The Doc smiled again. "All right then, no sense keeping you in bed anymore, I guess. Let's see if we can get you on your feet..." Doctor Mitchell said, and helped Jason get to his feet, feeling the numbing headache on his new scar, and a wave of slight disorientation.

"Good. Now, why don't you try walking down to that vigor tester machine on the other side of the room there? Take it slow, though. It ain't a race."

They came up to a wooden based, old scratched machine that had a screen with a small column separating two sides showing several wooden panels one by the other on both left and right sides, going downwards, with each having its own defining name and a small bulb, while on the right, the wooden panels showed a picture of a vault-boy, then below it, it detailed a western idealized description of the trait, Jason didn't have the time to read, and came to ask.

"What is this?" Jason asked, puzzled and amazed at the same time on how he could work such a thing.

"This is the Vit-O-Matic vigor tester machine. A device that can show you your vital life-signs, like an accurate guess-who game, where it tells you all about yourself and your capabilities, all you have to do is press your hands on the circles in front of you, and let the device scan you." Doctor Mitchell explained.

"Is this thing supposed to be a medical test?" Jason wondered, its appearance made him feel he was about to play a slot-machine.

"No… it's more of my own sort of test, its purpose here is to test your overall condition, but we will be doing some more tests rather than just this." Mitchell explained, scratching his neck.

"So I just put my hand on it?" he asked, simply.

The Doc nodded in reply, and Jason looked down at the circle, seeing the device, and pondered… would this hurt?

_Oh to hell with it_!

He placed his hand on the dial and felt a slight painfully thunderous shock emanate throughout his body, for a second only, before the device flashed and the dials filled up with several differing numbers. A sudden anger at being hurt subsided, and decided to not bother with caring whether or not Dr Mitchell knew about this or otherwise and just straightened himself up.

"Well, I'd say for someone like you, you're doing great in your condition. Just look at this…" he said, and pointed at the numbered dials down the Vit-O-Matic as they began changing down and up like a slot-machine.

The first one, counting for strength, landed on 6, naming him with '_Barrel Belly'_, and lit up the first of the bulbs down the length of the Vit-O-Matic machine.

The second, counting for perception, landed on a 5. Calling him a '_Wary Trout'_, sounded like a animal.

The third, counting for Endurance, landed on another 5. Calling him '_Stain-Resistant_', he doubted that when looking at his dirty, sweat-filled shirt.

The fourth, Charisma, landed as the highest as number to be, 8, it lit up yet another of the bulbs. It called him a '_Movie star'_, whatever that was.

The fifth, Intelligence, landed on a 7. Happily, it named Jason a '_Smartypants'_.

The sixth, Agility, stopped poorly on a number 6, and called him '_Catlike'_. That stood to be good too.

The last one, Luck, something that reminded Jason about something… but kept getting away from him, landed on a number…

No wait...It didn't say, it just kept swapping numbers. Doc Mitchell walked up to it and raised his clenched fist, before smacking it on the side.

"Come on, you stupid machine." Doc Mitchell said, slightly aggravated, but he sighed.

"Darn-it! It just went ka-put, guess it's time for someone to re-boot the thing again." Doc Mitchell sighed again, showing his displeasure.

Jason felt a little bad for him, the machine looked as old as Mitchell, and it might remind the poor fellow of himself, but these thoughts were just his own… he wondered what his luck ranged at… luck had saved his life on several occasions.

"Well, I say that your overall performance is great, it says you seem to be a nice guy to talk too, and smarter than present folk, and it says you're a bit slow... Oh well, guess people have their weakness's. But now, I'd like to do a few tests on your mental condition, now, if you would please follow me into the living room." Mitchell said, shining with a dried smile.

"Well we know your vitals are good… but that don't mean them bullets have your nuttier than a Bighorner dropping." He said, making his way to the chair near the corner of the room.

_What's a Bighorner?_ He thought, but dismissed it quickly.

The living room was large; nearly the same for the medical hospital, but it held a white-marble fireplace on the right, nicely ornamented with Doctor Mitchell's belongings, with several wooden shelves holding books backed up in the corners and the sides of the room, while in the center was the comfortable seats of a chair and a set-tee with a nice ragged carpet to boot.

He sat down on the part of the couch that didn't have Sunny on it, and looked at Mitchell as he gathered some papers from a suitcase beside him, before he sat down, ruffling through the sheets.

"Now, I'm going to start using some word association, and I want you to answer me with the first thing that comes to your mind when I say them. Alright?" he said, and Jason nodded in reply.

"Dog."

"…Companion."

"House."

"…Renovate."

"Night."

"…Dream."

"Bandit."

"…Danger."

"Light."

"…Hope."

"Mother."

He didn't know. He couldn't remember. He couldn't remember her touch, her voice… her.

"…Nothing"

"Well, it's alright Jason, just leave it be." He replied, and started writing down his results.

Jason tried getting a peak or two in the papers, but the Doctor stopped him when he began speaking again.

"Now, I've got some statements here, just like the other exercise, I want you to tell me how much they sound like something you'd say. Okay?" he asked, and Jason replied with a silent nod.

"First one's comin up… Conflict just ain't in my nature."

Jason thought for a moment's notice, before answering. "I... Not sure, but I think I would prefer talking things out."

"I ain't given to relying on others for support."

Jason shook his head a little, disagreeing. "No... I don't think so. Help is welcome."

"I'm always fixin' to be the center of attention."

"I… can't really answer that one."

"I'm slow to embrace new ideas."

"No. No, I don't think that sounds like me." Jason said, reaching into his conflicting mind, and found the scraps of info tucked away in the folds of his mind.

"I charge in to deal with my problems head-on."

"No. I'd go about to think about it first, see my problem, and find a solution." Jason replied, relieved that he'd learnt as much as Doctor Mitchell was about himself so far.

"Alright, Alright were nearly done here, now I want you to take a look at these pictures, what do you say you take a look at this. Tell me what you see?"

"Alright Doc, show me." Jason asked, and lay back on the couch, awaiting the exercise.

The Doctor flipped the first of three pictures, and Jason responded immediately.

"It looks like… a…C-Chemical Reaction."

He flipped a second.

"That… reminds me of a ship… A ship out at sea."

Then the third.

"Now that looks like… umm…a light in the darkness."

Mitchell nodded. "Well, that's all she wrote," he said as he put the pictures away in his suitcase. "Far as I can tell, you seem okay, save for the bad case of memory loss. I'd like to ask you a bit more, if that's alright."

"That's fine… I'm learning as much as you are really." Jason admitted, and Mitchell replied with a cocked eyebrow and laughed slightly, sounding more like rock rubbing rock, while brushing his mustache with his fingers.

"Have you any idea of what is going on out here?" he started, leaning inwards towards Jason.

"Well… where is here?" Jason replied, unsure of his whereabouts.

"Well, at the moment, you are in the Mojave Wasteland. A place where one of the most beautiful cities out in a desert, went untouched by the power of the bombs that ruined the world hundreds of years ago…"

Jason didn't seem surprised about bombs ruining the world around them, but took it in like any other piece of information, and continued listening to Doctor Mitchell.

"… This city is New Vegas. The jewel of the Mojave. The place that has lived and shone since before the war began, and is now under the control of several established tribes of men and women… however. It is protected and overseen by what seems to be, a mythic overseer, called and his army of Securitron robots."

A place that shines for two hundred years may just be one helluva place, and this overseer… Mr House, he seems to be a dominant figure in the Mojave, and his robots…" Jason has never heard of a Securitron before, and it might be interesting to see one.

"But New Vegas is but one hotspot in the venture throughout the Mojave, being contested by several tribal factions. Hoover Dam, being one of the other places throughout the Mojave, and it the constant battlegrounds for two of the Mojave's main factions over the last few years. The New Californian Republic being one of them, and a collection of… eighty six tribes being the other, a faction known as Caesar's Legion."

Jason made a note not to go near Hoover Dam anytime soon, what with his mental condition and his unawareness of the Mojave, it may do him good. But what Jason wanted to learn more about, were these factions he was hearing about. The New Californian Republic and the Caesar's Legion.

"What's the New Californian Republic?" Jason asked, and Mitchell put his hands and fingers together like he was scheming up an idea.

"The NCR, as we prefer to call them, are a democratic federation that use Pre-War ideals and traditions as their way of life, being originated from the Pre-War military all those hundreds of years ago, and bare the flag of a two-headed bear. So if you see them, they're nice, but restricted by their laws and traditions to carry out charitable acts that don't benefit them in the process of taking the Mojave as their own. They control most of the economy in and out of the Mojave, like the Hoover Dam for example, earning them a constant flow of fresh, purified water and a source of power, to gain the attentions of any and all to follow them, and have tried even taking this town as their own too. Through diplomatic approaches that is." He explained, intoning his discomfort about the NCR.

From what he could hear, Jason thought that the NCR sounded like a bunch of democratic assholes who take laws too seriously to not help save innocent people in the Mojave to rot and die. But their control over the Mojave seemed strong, and the influence seemed to be overwhelming… no wonder they seem to be a standing, influential democracy.

"So their like a self-dependent government that rely only on themselves to support itself… anyone else would be economic partners, foe's, or unusable innocence." Jason summed up, displeased with the way the NCR seem to 'help' the Wasteland.

"Exactly… but they do it so they can survive, and resume what the world was like before the war. It's a sad truth, but they're doing better than most." Mitchell replied, and sat back uneasy, feeling the topic had gone a little personal.

"So, what is Caesar's Legion?" Jason changed the subject, and was given an awfully disturbing reply.

"The Legion? They are the worst of the worst, grounded by a pagan religion of some unorthodox collection of deities that follow the rule of where the strong ones survive and the weak must die."

Jason's stomach felt shriveled up inside as he told more to him.

"They burn and crucify 'un-loyal' men. Stand them up for all to see: as they kidnap children and woman as slaves, raping or murdering them for their own desires to be seen fulfilled. Coming from tribes of eighty-six different titles, they undoubtedly follow the flag of the golden-bull, the mark of their leader, Caesar. A man so evil, that he had his best friend and general burned and thrown into the Grand Canyon after he failed to take Hoover Dam from the NCR." He spat out these words in disgust, his blue-eyes never once changing from its angered expression, and Jason thought he was about to punch something with the anger he contained.

Caesar's Legion… sounded like monsters more than humans, beasts fed upon ideals too savage for mankind to recall upon.

"That's… horrible." That's all he could reply with, but then he asked.

"How can this, Caesar, really be like he is?" Jason wondered, how can something so evil count as being human?

"Nobody knows friend, some say he was born without a soul, and a demon replaced it, carrying a plague that corrupts any and all who hear his blasphemous tongue to follow its path into evils of hell." Doctor Mitchell spoke this with so much… truth; Jason couldn't believe what he was hearing.

"But let me tell this too… when you go out there and into the Mojave, do not, I repeat… Do NOT! Trust, anyone! Because anyone out there can be a match of evil or no-good psycho inside, and if you have them at your back… expect a knife to be coming your way."

Jason took in these words as he made up some rules to follow when outside in the wastes.

Number 1, being, don't let yourself trust anyone without good reason or suspicion.

"So besides that… do you know anything about the basic means to survive the Mojave then, after all these topics, I believe we need to fill in all the gaps of this subject." He said, returning to a calmer, more pleasant Mitchell than he was beforehand.

"Well… no. I guess everything that I was… that I am… has disappeared, unable to shed light out into the dark… I have no idea where to begin." Jason replied, scratching his hair, feeling a little overwhelmed after all the Doctors questions.

"Well then… I guess we should get someone to make you learn then, huh?" he deducted, but didn't continue to name who it would be, only smiling with inquisitive eyes.

"Do you have a gun?" he finally asked, cocking his eyebrow.

Jason believed the old man was joking, but found no evidence of humor or sarcasm, but more of a tone of seriousness, assurance, and... maybe interest.

"No…"

"You might want to go into the local towns store then, buy yourself one from Chet, the local shopkeeper… here; I'll give you some caps." The Doctor said, getting up and walking to a bag that rested on a shelf nearby.

"Caps?" Jason wondered, what did that have to do with getting a gun?

"Bottle Caps. It's the currency of the Wasteland. Any cap you find is like gold to another man, so keep them on you at all times, and don't let anyone get in on ya." He explained, grabbing a small bag tied in a bond of rope at its tip, where in jingled with the sound of caps hitting caps inside.

He dropped them in Jason's hand, echoing in a _thunk! _across the house as it fell and hit him on his lap across the house.

All Jason could think of is, _Why the hell would anyone use caps as a currency… it's just bizarre!_

But everything just seemed bizarre for him at the moment, and he tried to believe that this may just be normal in the lives of the everyday wastelander of the Mojave.

"In fact… I'm gonna give ya a gun for the road." He pondered to himself, and went away for a second.

"What… umm, really? Thank you, I Uhhh, could pay you back?" Jason replied, astounded that Mitchell, after all he was hearing from him, being so charitable and giving.

"Don't be so prude, it would make me feel awful if I didn't let someone like yourself in the situation you're in such as amnesia, to be let out without me giving you the proper procedures to make you feel safe and well when your let out into the big bad world such as ours." He spoke like he was talking to a ten-year old, but Jason recognized the kindness in his voice and gratified him.

"Ooh, I almost forgot... Mr O'Reiley, your overall condition is un-compromised but... I'm going to do one final test. Just a medical record that you need to fill, just so I have information of any problems that you have that may be the cause of a future problem, you know. It's not like I'm gonna find you have a family that keeps getting bullets in their heads." Mitchell joked, crackling a smile, handing him a form of paper for him to sign and put in his details from his suitcase.

For a moment there, Jason considered that. But shook it down before being handed a pencil, and then began signing the details down.

A few minutes of time spent on filling the form in, one detail referred to his family… touching lightly on the subject by explaining that he had a home west of the Mojave, and his parents died in a terrible accident involving an incident with a source of ignited gasoline. Just making it up as he went along… but the saddening truth of it was… he couldn't remember them.

His mind ached and raced, hurting with the pain coming from his foreheads scar, and brainstorming what his possible past was… he couldn't remember who, what, even how he was or is. He didn't know if he was a Good Samaritan that gave out charitable gifts and help, or being an evil drunkard with an attitude of cursing… he hoped it wasn't the latter.

After the tests were finished, Doctor Mitchell made his final account of the matter and after a moment or two of reading with his pair of reading spectacles, he finally spoke out.

"I reckon you're in good enough condition for me to turn you loose. Do you have any idea of what you are going to do now, may I ask?" he said, cocking an eye-brow.

"Well…" Jason began, but stopped.

He had no idea what to do. He couldn't remember what happened to him, or why it happened to him, what kind of life he led, what family or friends he could look upon. He could only look at the hands he flexed in an out with his fingers… so he thought of the next best thing.

He wanted answers.

"I think I'm gonna see if I can find whoever put a bullet in me in the first place. And see why he did it." Jason replied, leaving small grin on his face, betraying a small eagerness in him.

"Well, I do recommend Jason, you would dress yourself in more clothes than just your tank-top and underwear?" he pointed out.

For the first time for they were speaking, he realized he was undressed from his clothes… and turned a bright red color on his cheeks. His other clothes was probably ruined with blood, so what was he going to wear? He hadn't been found half-naked like this, did he? Was this all he had to walk around in? He didn't even have any footwear!

"Wait here." Mitchell said, and he disappeared elsewhere in the house.

Jason was about to ask where he was going, but left it be, and so took this chance and moment of solemn solitude to get a look at this woman next to him more closely, without waking her up rudely, he lent back on the sofa, and looked at her in more detail.

She wore an abundant amount of blackened-brown leather. A leather-jacket strapped with padded belts, and leather trousers protected on its knee's with hardened plates, that shimmered in the reflection of the sun rays that appeared through the cracks of the boarded up windows.

It was evident that she was a trained gunner, for she had a freshly-polished looking rifle beside her, and several 5.56mm bullet rounds loaded in the small, wide pockets of the bandoleer belts over her chest and waist.

He looked at her face, probably the most important thing about her… and he had to admit, that she was a beautiful woman. He almost felt entranced by her untouched features, her face was adorned with a smooth and small nose, wildly freckled cheeks that freckled the bridge of her nose too, and her shining sandy-ginger, combed-back hair tied in a lock of hair fell neatly away from her face, denying her of any spots, whiteheads or blackheads, and it showed off in her light shade of tan that presented her skin, he could only imagine what glistened in her beautiful eyes…

He almost felt like he was in love with her.

He almost laughed aloud at the thought. He was only nineteen, and he was already reminiscing the romantic idea of 'love-at-first-sight'. He did like the look of this woman, he believed that any man might… and he pondered on the thought of when they could chat in person.

He hoped it was soon...

Doctor Mitchell just came in carrying a pair of dark-leather boots that had strings zig-zag down its skin, alongside a set a folded up clothes that he carried in his other hand. He gave them to Jason, who looked up in surprise.

"You're giving these to me?" he asked, wondering if this was a true or not.

"Of course, I wouldn't let any of the locals pick on ya for lacking modesty. Never really was much of my style anyway." he joked, giving a warm but dull smile.

"Thank you. Very much. You're too kind." He said, getting up from the couch.

"Ahhh don't worry about it, the least you can do is keep yourself together for long enough, and try to stay alive out there… you're a rare character out here in the wastes these days." Doctor Mitchell replied in welcome.

"Thanks for patching me up." Jason thanked, obviously indebted to the man with his life.

"Don't mention it. It's what I'm here for." He replied cheerfully.

The Doc led him to an empty bedroom that was on the right of the corridor leading to the exit, on the left before Doctor Mitchell's kitchen by the right, where he passed yet again some shelves that held food, knives, ammunition and boxes on them.

He put the clothes on the bed, and when Doctor Mitchell shut the door too, he could easily change into the clothes, away from the eyes of any interlopers. He put on the pale-grey vest first over his ragged chest, then adding on the 'caravan' sick-brown trousers over his underwear and then zipped it up, and slipped his arms through the sleeves of a long-coat leather jacket that wrapped around him warmly, then taking on a pair of socks onto his feet before applying the knots to his new boots laces, tightening it for a good fit.

He walked around to make sure he was nimble in the new set of clothing, and to loosen the tightness of his boots a little more. He was ready before he knew it, and began looking into a long, tall oval shaped mirror, and smiled at his own reflection that mimicked his own face of anticipation, and slight fear of the outside world.

Doctor Mitchell had also let a holster-belt hang from a coat-hanger by the beds scaffolding, and in it held Jason's newly owned M&A 9mm Pistol. Compliments to Mitchell, given the circumstances that he'd owned that gun ever since he was a teenager and had never made use for it, and he had been meaning to get rid of the withered thing too.

Jason took it and wrapped it around the inside of his long-coat, hiding it from seeing eyes.

He looked like an old western cowboy, remembering a small, evident picture in his mind from a children's magazine. All he was missing was a…

"You'd look better with a hat on." Someone said aloud.

Jason suddenly turned around in surprise and saw the Sunny leaning on the open door, looking at him with deep orange eyes, and an unbelievable smile… so radiant and bright; he felt it light up the room. Though he felt a little displeased with himself not noticing her earlier… _how long has she been standing their?_

"Have you ever heard of knocking before entry, madam?" he found himself asking, not angrily, but positively, giving out a small grin.

"Is that any way to speak to the lady who dragged you out of a grave?" she smirked, shining rare pearl-white teeth out in the open.

"You're the one who pulled me out? So you must be…"

"Sunny. It's Sunny Smiles." She replied, her name evident within her own radiant smile.

"Nice to meet you, I'm Jason, Jason O'Reiley… how long have you been standing there for?" he said, cocking his eyebrow her way.

Her eyes widened for a second and she turned her head away from him… her freckled cheeks turning cherry red. She was evidently blushing, and for a second, Jason felt embarrassed that he'd been looked upon so bare for so long, for he could see that she had definitely seen him changing, and quickly decided to change the subject.

"Thank you for… saving my life." He said, and he just felt a little more embarrassed, he himself turning a little farther away from her direction, but he could tell she'd gone a bit redder herself, as did he.

"You're… umm, w-welcome… I'll just be… umm, o-outside then." She said quickly, and didn't look at him again, before taking off.

Jason looked back, and sighed. At least he knows he isn't a bad talker. But took that in hesitantly, before tightening his belt in the right point, and then continued to look at himself in a nearby broken-mirror.

_What am I doing here_? He thought.

Doctor Mitchell came in just then, looking where Sunny was taking off from, and then looked back at Jason like he'd done something.

"What was that all about then?" he asked, clearly confused.

Jason thought about it for a moment, and decided to better not tell Mitchell about Miss Smiles peaking at him from the doorway.

"Doc, I have… no idea." He said, and hid back his deception.

"Well then… I almost forgot to give you these." He replied, raising his arms to reveal a wristband-device that shone in a bright green hue, and ironically… a cowboy hat.

"Here, you can have these. That thing there is called a Pip-Boy. I had one when I grew up in one of the Vaults as a kid. Ain't much use to me now, but you might want such a thing after all you've been through, I know what it's like to have something lost." He said, giving them to him, and showed him the mere basics of using the Pip-Boy, like how to turn it on, how it documents what the user is holding in an Items section, archives information or knowledge in a Data section, and shows his current vitality in the Stats section.

"It fits perfectly…" Doc Mitchell said to him, tightening the leather wrist-strap so that it could fit around Jason's hand.

Jason smiled at his new, advanced device, gazing at its screen with eagerness.

"I guess that it's my lucky day, huh?" he said aloud, walking to Doctor Mitchell in thanks and accepting the gifts.

* * *

><p><em>Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!<em>

Why had she stood at that door for so long without announcing herself! Now she felt like a total idiot, and now he thinks that she's a pervert or something now!

"Fuck!" Sunny cursed at herself… pulling her hair in anger, feeling like she was going to explode, she never ever acted like this before, so why now...

Had she not woken up on the couch moments ago and searched for the guy she had dug up days ago, when she saw that his bed was empty, she wouldn't have gone rushing around looking for him and not have stumbled upon him while he was getting dressed **half-naked**!

When she had spoken aloud just then, all she thought was he could have done with a hat in his fitting western-style outfit - like her old bonny self does - he turned and introduced himself… and she froze up on the spot the moment when he asked her if she had been standing there long.

She felt so embarrassed, her face was lit up red like a warm campfire: she had no idea what to even say; her throat wouldn't allow her to speak, like she just forgotten how to speak.

Sunny had been in turmoil trying to think of what to say to this guy after all this time, and all she got was his name… Jason O'Reiley… she solemnly embraced after all this time… and nearly punched her own stomach after making herself look like a damned fool!

She was sat outside the door of Doctor Mitchell's house, and was tearing at her hair in frustration of her own idiocy once more.

"Dammit! Dammit! Dammit!" she cried, punching the ground like there was a bug she could squash, imagining that she, was that bug.

She had not been what you would call "a social girl", never really one with words…

Some girls gossip all the time on prissy subjects and any dirty deed overheard in their local part of the Mojave, while Sunny… shined at talking about rifles, pistols, revolvers, hunting equipment, traps, skinning techniques, cooking, and even wild animals... that sort of thing.

She loved to talk about the how a 357. Caliber Magnum could take the head clean off a bothersome Gecko at 25 feet away, how the sound of a Varmint rifle click is like the crackling of a campfire from pulling its bolt after shooting… she adored it.

However… she had, when she was little, she became an outcast child because of it.

The other girls didn't like nor want to be around her, her tom-boyish style ended with her being the towns personal child-weirdo. The girls picked on her constantly, bringing her up in a life of misery as they called her names and spread untrue rumors across the town, demoting her to that of a Radroach…

And the boys didn't exactly help her in her childhood neither… they had thrown rocks, water, sticks and dirt at her, scaring her off as they played games across town, leaving her alone with her misery for all those years…

But they ended up dying from the Mojave's dangers, or they moved away from the ghost-like backwater town of Goodspring's for a better life on the caravan-travels, she however ended up staying for the rest of her life… and her Pa had made her stayed here, protecting the people like a sheriff and his deputy daughter.

They were family… that was it. She hated him though; almost never put a second glance at him whenever they met. She took in the night shifts when she was fifteen just so she could keep her peace away from that man.

She had six brothers, before they had all died young when they went too far from the safety of their Pa, and suffered for it. Some tried running away, some tried to prove themselves for him and failed, dying from whatever impossible request he gave them… all of them died because of that man.

And since she was the only child left in the Smiles family, her Pa decided that she was to continue the protection of Goodspring's.

He'd seen her interests bare fruition and used them to keep the town safe, using them against her as the only thing that held her in the town, but she didn't do it for him… no, she'd rather kill the man in cold blood and be done with it…

She did it however, for the people, and the people alone. She'd seen the injuries they'd kept with them from the dangers before her father came into town, how deep the scars went, how far the bites had bit into their skin and bones… how much they had been affected without a defense…

In the end of it all she had lost him after a tragic evening… he'd saved this poor fellow from an attack from escaped convicts, but he lost his life from a bullet to his heart, by an odd and rare bullet… a handmade 9mm Magnesium and Lead round that had set his heart on fire, and poisoned him to death all in the same time…

Sunny sniffled at the thought of her Pa; how she'd held his hand post-death… and cried for the rest of the week… promising him she wouldn't let the town down in protecting them. Even if the old bastard was a horrible man… he was family, and he made his part in life by being amended through his good and charitable deeds.

Now, she felt like she was letting herself down and the whole town with her… over-reacting in her part about this guy, yes, but her actions could affect her overall reputation with the townsfolk, and if they hear that she had seen a man in his underwear...

She bit her lip, nearly drawing blood up in her mouth, and got up, shaking off the tears that were coming her way, and clearing her mind of her problems.

_It was just this guy in his pants… __**get over it**_! She thought.

But that _**guy**_ was all she could think about for the last four days… for some reason, this guy felt… different.

In a sense, he seemed to have more than meets the eye. He had survived death from a bullet wound to his head, and suffocation in the shallow grave he was put into. He had the looks of a man… a young man, who was ready to do anything. Something about him just made him feel like he was made to do something important…

Upon looking at him, Sunny reckoned that he looked strong; the build of his musculature appealed her embarrassingly very much. His eyes… a hue of pale blue, were rare and uncommon in any person of the Wasteland, and it told her his life was unpredictable.

The way he moves though… was odd, like a man without sight, he could not see what was ahead of him, or what was behind him… in a sense, he didn't know what he was doing. It's as if he just met a lifelong friend and remembers nothing of him... completely oblivious.

And she kinda liked that about him. He looked handsome and charming, like a knight in shining armor ready to save a damsel in distress in one of the old fairy tales in Trudy's bookshelf. She was kind of hoping that she would be that damsel…

But, that was just Sunny's thoughts just playing with her.

She took a deep breath, and sighed… hoping she could get past what had occurred with the guy.

She turned around, and found him standing there in front of her - she nearly screamed, but cupped her hands around her face beforehand, her eyes wide with surprise - he stood there, out of the doorway, not making a sound, and just lent there looking at her.

"Didn't you know it's rude to…"

"Stare? I guessed, but I see that were even now. Huh." He said, toying with her, adjusting his newly found hat.

She found herself blushing again, then he started laughing.

He found something funny… and was laughing about it. Sunny frowned as she presumed a thought.

_Was he laughing at me?_

She suddenly realized what the joke meant, and whether or not this guy was about to say anything else, she might just punch him for it. And for the thing he was about to say next, took her off her feet…

"Sunny, I hope we didn't get off on the wrong foot, so... how about we start over? I'm Jason O'Reiley…" he said, surprisingly, and held out a hand to her.

She cocked an eyebrow, disbelief suddenly melted away the moment it came, and she felt relieved, no break of her reputation as the towns ranger at that... and she could tell, that this guy certainly is definitely different… and he's also something of a gentlemen, kindly restarting the way they'd met in an easier, better manner.

"Hi, I'm Sunny…" she replied, and took his hand, and shook it.

Ending whatever moment in the house behind them happened, and started anew. Beginning what seemed to be, a good day in Goodsprings.


	2. Chapter 2  Local Demons

_Local Demons_

Jason could not believe his luck…

He pulled off an unbelievably lucky chat on the woman who had, intruded on him earlier and ran off before he could say anything about it, and restarted their introductions to one another all over again.

He spent most of the day talking to the locals, meeting people like Easy Pete in front of the Prospectors Saloon. The main topic being him mostly, like who shot him, how did he survive... quite the popular guy around here. And it reminded him of the dude in the checkered suit, where he could find his answers from.

He also paid a visit to the Goodspring's general store, and met Chet the shopkeeper, who had, due to Jason's own convincing voice and bartering skills, gave him an ammo-box of 9mm rounds for his pistol, a newly stocked Varmint rifle with a hundred of its standard 5.56mm rounds to accompany it, at the expense of two hundred and fourteen caps, leaving him with only forty caps left from Doc Mitchells bag of caps.

The ammunition was kept in Jason's ammo-box, which he had strung on to the back of his long-coats jacket belt, a small price to pay for lugging its weight around. But it made up for it in carrying his ammo, while his pistol stayed in its holster, and his rifle hanging by his shoulder, light in weight, and easy to carry around.

Sunny gladly showed him around the place, and warned him about the places he may visit around town that might be dangerous, like the towns local Schoolhouse, where it was plagued by a small infestation of, from what he heard, as Giant Mantises.

But, he fancied something to eat and drink, and Sunny recommended the best place in town where they were at, at the moment, they were at a table, drinking beers, in the Prospector's Saloon. The main hub of drink and booze in Goodspring's that provides for each and every villager that lives in the town. He couldn't see why anyone disliked the place, for it had the nicest of people around he had ever seen.

Just earlier, he shared a chat with the owner of the Saloon, a nice woman called Trudy.

She spoke with a crispy western accent, but it held intellect and strength, a trait that many people have lost in these times… no wonder she was practically the leader of the town.

He'd learned from Trudy that times were hard nowadays due to the actual location of where Goodspring's was, not attracting any signs of travellers to pay for any Bighorner meat or portable water along Highway I-15.

One of the main problems really was one of the basic wild-life in the Mojave. Gecko's… dozens of them, oversized desert lizards with big red and yellow eyes that continue to bite and bugger up the locals with wounds and injuries when they come to get the fresh water from their springs.

Another problem is more human and smart… only just.

Trudy, and the rest of the town for that matter, calls them Powder Gangers. Criminal convicts that escaped from their prison after an organized breakout was underway. Some call the NCR guards stupid and idiotic for giving them dynamite in the first place, but they were working to build roads and rail-roads back up by blowing up the rock and environment around them to set up a reasonable degree of long-distance trade to be set up along the Mojave quick… but it didn't turn out well since the Gangers killed the Guards, took their armour, and began roaming the wastes… causing havoc to any and all who come their way.

And just when the problems seem to stockpile even more… the NCR controlled-Quarry just north-east of Goodspring's, that lead along the way towards the city of New Vegas along the Junction I-15 roadway, closed.

Why? Because it was quarantined when a brood of Deathclaw's nestled into the Quarry and occupy the territory as their own nesting grounds.

When he asked what a Deathclaw was… Trudy gave the description out with shuddering detail.

_They creep in the night with clawed feet, which can run at the speed of the wind, hunting down prey with big blood-red eyes that haunt you till your dying days when you see it coming. It's shadow tells the story of its demon like looks… the devils horns adorned to its head, with breath so foul even corpses turn in their graves as they catch it in the air, a mouth that honours a collection of murderous knives ready to plunge into your flesh, skin so strong and tough that bullets don't seem to slow it down… and probably the worst of all, is its long, razor sharp claws that it earns its name from… one swipe from its long talons, and it spells your death._

Jason shuddered at hearing these words, and definitely earned his rule number 2… if you see a horned creature with long claws… pray to god.

Then there were wild coyotes that hunt the land around Goodspring's in packs, hiding in any corner or bush the Mojave has to offer before it pounces out, and bites into your neck and rips out your throat.

The list goes on…

Jason was surprised at the number of problems that this town has, and was even more surprised when Trudy explained that this town wasn't that bad with problems, that there were other places in the Mojave even worse than Goodspring's. And he believed that he needs some training for it...

"You don't know anyone who could help me learn a few things about the Mojave before I leave to find the guy in the suit, do you?" Jason asked, and both of them looked at one another, with smiles on their faces.

"Well honey, I suspect you don't know much about Miss Smiles over yonder, hmm?" Trudy said warmly, but Jason crossed his arms and shook his head in reply.

"The thing is… Sunny is the town's locally independent ranger. And she is trained with skills to potentially survive the wastes alone, knowing every trick in the book to live in that death-zone out there." Trudy explained, while Sunny took another swig of her beer, her cheeks reddening again.

"You make me sound like I'm more important than most people…" she said, trailing off as she swung the top of her beer-bottle around in small invisible circles in her hand.

"Well, I'd love to learn a couple of things before taking off. I hope you don't mind me bothering…"

"Oh not at all. There really ain't much to do around these parts; it'll just serve me better with you doing some tasks alongside me… Trudy's told me that the Gecko's are looming over the springs again, so I could use a hand handling them." She replied, offering him a job he practically couldn't refuse.

"I'd be happy to oblige." Jason said, drinking the last of his bitter beer, and slamming the glass on to the table.

"Right then. Let's go." She said, gulping the last of her beer, and threw the caps on the table to pay for the drinks.

"What… now?" Jason said, surprised at the sudden haste of it all.

"Yeh… get your ass up and in gear, and let me show you what it means to live in the Mojave, Mister O'Reiley." She said, teasing him, and with her attitude, she really perked Jason's mood up. He smiled and said.

"Call me Jason, Sunny." Smiling at his reply and slipped out of the comfortable seat of the bar, following her to the back door of the Saloon, which lead outside to a small slope going to higher ground, where a trailer stood docile and uninterrupted.

He got a good look at what the town looked like, seeing the many houses that filled the town either standing or ruined, and the many animal pens that held giant, four-legged farm animals with giant bony horns protruding from their foreheads, and brayed with red ugly-faces, and licked at their brown-grey coats.

He guessed that they were Bighorners.

He saw the back of Goodspring's general store, with wooden-boards blocking out broken windows, crates filling the back of it with the words _Sunset Sarsaparilla_ tagged on them, what he had heard was a delectable, honey-nectar like beverage that satisfied most of many people's quenchable thirsts.

In the distance, he saw the tall wind-mill of a Goodspring's farmer loom over the Prospector's Saloon, and in the sky, he saw birds loom over Goodspring's, seeing their black feathers, it chilled him to see them… a bad omen.

On the ground he noticed dust-bowls roll in the wind, with desert shrubbery littering several spots of the sand-dirt floor, and small prickly tree's spread out into the open.

It surely was a desert like area.

"Is this what the Mojave looks like?" he said aloud, and Sunny turned back to answer him.

"Sure is. Cut away the civilisation, this is what it is." She said, holding her rifle in her hands, and threw a look at Jason to his own rifle, who grabbed it the moment he raised his arms to his back to grab it, and began scanning the length of his own rifle.

"We using these?" he asked, looking up at Sunny, who was taking up a crouching position up on the small fenced-slope, and aimed down her sights at the brick wall of the Saloon.

No, not the wall, the bottles that were marked with Sunset Sarsaparilla company symbols, she aimed to shoot them down, and in one second, she took down one of the bottles, and then instinctively pulled back a bolt-rod at the topside of the weapon, then pushed it forward again as a round fell to the ground from its bottom. She hit it, butt first to the ground and smirked at Jason.

"Ready?" she asked, obviously offering Jason the whole Sarsaparilla Shooting range.

"For what?" he asked, curious into what she was doing.

"Training of course, now come on, you can probrably take down these mean looking bottles can't ya?"

Jason smiled, moved to Sunny, and went in-line with the shooting range, and did exactly what Sunny instructed him to do.

"All right. In your hands is an old farmer-jock's classic low-powered bolt-action Wessington 'Varmint' rifle, how you handle it is by how you wish to use it. To shoot, you put the rifles wooden-butt to your chest, look down at the rifles iron-sights, pull the trigger with gentle strength, and you'll shoot the target of choice at which the iron-sights tip will hit the target if you are aiming right and true… pick a bottle, and knock it's hat off." Sunny instructed, and nodded for him to do so.

As she said, Jason put the butt to his chest, his right hand holding the trigger area, while his left was holding the far end of the rifle, supporting it in weight.

"Hold the wooden caste before it finishes at its end, and distribute your strength and steadiness into your left hand." She instructed, Jason found himself being able to easily do so, and initiatively aimed down his sights to an unmoving bottle.

He fired, the bullet breaking the bottle into glass-fragments, and he, without any instruction from Sunny, pulled the bolt-rod back and forth to allow the empty round drop to the floor, before pushing it forward, and looking up.

"Nice… you're a swift learner my friend." Sunny complimented, obviously impressed.

"I learn from the best." Jason replied, allowing Sunny to avert her eyes away and blush a weak tint of red.

"Right then, take down some more bottles, see how many you get in four rounds." She challenged, and Jason returned to downing his sights on the Varmint rifle.

* * *

><p>"Hey Joe… you hear about this fella down at Goodspring's? They say he got shot in the head, and then got buried, and he still walks on his two feet." One of Joe's Gangers said, interrupting him while he had a cigarette.<p>

"Yo, !. You're interruptin' my smokin' time." Joe made apparent, and breathed in a lung-full of the cheap cigarettes deadly content, and exhaled it out into the air.

Joe lazily turned his head to the convict scum that was having the guts to chat to him, and offered a mere interest in his topic.

"What the ! you talking about fool?" Joe asked, getting up from his seat of a stolen goods crate.

"Well… this chump from nowhere got dug out of a grave, a bullet in his noggin', sent to the doctors, and got lucky as hell to come out alive. He's the talk of the town at the moment." The poor chump said.

Joe put more attention to the man, looking at him a bit more, seeing that his sodden form was covered in grey-cut shorts and showed his bare-chest, trying to look impressive with low-packed muscles, with bandolier belts holding the shorts up in support.

"What's your name !" Joe asked, inhaling his smoke's again.

"The names Richie, Joe." He replied.

He looked young to be one of the convicts from that damned prison facility, the NCRRF, the New Californian Republic Recuperation Facility… the hellhole that kept him and his boys locked up for months, with nothing to do but blow ! up with the boom-sticks they got holed up with.

"Look '!ie Richie', I don't give a shit about this guy, or his !in' luck, cause he's just one guy, that can be shot a few more times in the head… to be dead. Dig?" Joe cleared with the man, who stood shaking at him.

"Now… get the ! outta my face." Joe said, dismissing his fellow ganger, and started thinking about his mission here.

He was out for a guy, some poor ! that got away from one of their caravan assaults, and he was holed up somewhere… and it was Joe's job, to see that this )*(%-stain from the road gets cleaned off the earth for good.

That was his orders from the big guy in their personal fort in the wasteland, what used to imprison them, now defended them from the world, and all of its people that saw the Powder Gangers as evil criminals…

But Joe knew that they were much more than just that. They would expand, they would grow in number, let more scum from the road fill their numbers as fellow criminals across the Mojave, and see fit that the NCR, sees to its future destruction.

He was sure of that…

He inhaled the last of the cigarette, before its cindering end touched his hand, and threw it on the ground, while exhaling the smoke from his mouth. The taste of the grey fog feeling good and groggy in his mouth.

He looked around his hideout, where his boys had set up shop, some of them paired up in carrying wooden crates, heavy with TNT sticks of dynamite. Guns were lined up by the wall, plenty of rifles leaning on the rock of their cave hideout, while pistols were holstered inside their holsters, hanging over them on nailed spikes.

He looked up at some of the !ing !s that was in the room with him, figuring some were practical nut-head's, ready to pop open with their insane moves at a moment's notice, or the mention of a word.

He almost laughed at them, seeing the anticipation of the conflict that will occur soon…

The Powder Gangers, the part of the gang known as Cobb's Coyote's, where Joe's assortment of grouped convicts sat down around a fire that lit up the cavernous environment around them as they shared a cigarette's and bite of delicious, but dry foods. Some of them were burning to fight something; he could see a brawl coming from two guys over a squirrel-on-a-stick that heated over the fire. He sensed, no _felt_ their eagerness to put some blood on the floor, their faces highlighted and deceiving their intentions as their eyes wildly moved from one spot to another by the campfire that boiled their squirrel stew that they'd been readying for supper inside a heating pot.

Joe was only hungry for one thing though… and that was to see that this ! Ringo will paint the floor in his blood after he'd riddled him with a dozen bullet-holes.

Joe walked up near to the hideouts exit, where he and some other Gangers had caught and tamed the wild and rabid hearts of a few coyote's and strung them up separate from one another so that they couldn't tear each other apart like, well, dogs!

The Gangers tame, and personally wild hound-dogs. They growled in hunger as they barked and bore their frothing mouths at him, as he and his gangers starved them all the while, readying them for when they could hunt this Ringo characters down, and have his hide as a carpet.

"That's right boys, Uncle Joe has got dinner comin' up pretty soon, you just wait your !-! mouths till you can munch on some Crimson Caravan !. I'm sure he'll taste delicious." He said to them, tormenting them as he pulled out a piece of coyote meat, and then ate it in front of their faces with a sickening grin, followed by an evil and insidious laugh.

* * *

><p>Far away in the dim-lit schoolhouse of Goodspring's, Gully enjoys the satisfaction of tasting the crunchy exoskeletons of giant mantises, licking his grubby hands of the insects fluidic-blood, and relishing in the feel of food in his stomach churn once more.<p>

He wheezed out a breath of rancid stench, seeming to make this abandoned ruin a little homestead before he had once again, moved on out to hunt for meat… and he fancied the taste of tender animal meat for tomorrows ravaging.

He moved on all fours, his knuckles scratched and bare from using them to hold his weight around, however, he was pleased to know that they provided a service being like this animalistic form, although his thoughts were blurred with paranoia and delusions at times, he still felt the human in the back of his mind revolt in his disgusting manner of travelling, and that he was demolishing his body even quicker than before.

Gully croaked out some air in the imitation of a laugh, almost forgetting how he could do so after, what… seventy years? He found it hard to believe the time registered in his mind, but dismissed it and cracked his ruined face in a possible smile, physically causing his skin to fall off and shed with age and desecration.

He couldn't help but seem annoyed by his slight loss of intelligence, not remembering how to speak fluently, his memories of his human still fuzzy and distant. He felt like a child locked in a cupboard, and felt compelled to get out.

In the schoolhouse, he hugged himself for warmth, not that he needed it with the radiation he contained inside of him, feeling its reverberating presence choke at his lungs, his heart, his brain, making his veins glow bright green, his skin following suit, and his eyes burning with the sight of his own shining body.

He hated it, and he felt the burning sensation of the radiation in his body burn inside of him more often in the last day, and punched the wall beside him, breaking it and unleashing a small emanation of sunlight, a curse that mocked him every day for the main part of the day.

His stomach still yearned for delicious flesh, meaty and juicy in all its forms, to consume, a physical depression appearing on his body showed with his ribs almost showing by the bone with him being so skinny and frail.

But he stopped himself from thinking too much, that would make his human stronger, and him weaker… so he barked out at the shadows of the room he had up-turned and fought invisible foes with his clawed, shrivelled hands, clawing at them reverently and chomping down on unseen flesh.

And so he went about fighting his demons for the night to come, and challenging the weak human in the corner of his inflicted mind to dare a challenge at him…

Such a pathetic thing, a human… he almost felt pity for himself that he had once been one.

* * *

><p>"Not bad huh?" Jason said.<p>

Sunny was astounded.

She has never someone who had no experience in gun's, get that good, in that small amount of time. He had four bullets left in his rifle, and had shot down four more bottles into glass-fragments, their bodies littering the floor as a hazard, but the netting beneath them kept them in a heap…

She looked once more at the guy, and still saw a man who was lost… but was finding his way.

Jason got up from his crouching position off the ground, and slung the varmint rifle over his shoulder.

"You couldn't teach me how to reload this, could ya?" he asked, smirking at her with a small glint of the sun in his eye.

"Yeh… sure." She said, going back to reality.

"Now, you practically do the same thing as when you're releasing an empty round… you pull the bolt-rod, disabling the lock on the guns ammo-clip. Pull it out, don't drop it… you might just find you can load it with more bullets for next time. And punch in a new magazine, then push the rod forward… and you're ready." Sunny said, demonstrating all the way through, and then watched as he was trying to do it.

He started off easy, but when he began trying to pry away the ammo-clip by force, when Sunny had noticed that he hadn't pulled the rod far enough, she walked up to him and calmed him to try and stop, but he wouldn't allow it.

"Let me help…" she said, and put her hands on his rifle's empty ammo-magazine… and she accidentally touched his fingers that were forcing the magazine to eject.

A moment of awkwardness followed, and she felt a little embarrassed, uncomfortable… and prayed to god that she wasn't turning bright red once again. She didn't expect that he was going to say something.

"How come you… always blush?" he asked her.

She was blushing.

"It's just that I-I…" she paused, trying to avoid the subject.

He put a step closer to her, trying to get a look at her eyes as her head had turned, and he perked her chin up to face him.

Without hiding under the brow of his cowboy's hat, she could see his glistening eyes of deep, cool pools of water, just looking into her fiery orange eyes, and the both of them looked deep into one another.

"You can tell me…" he said sweetly, and gingerly lowered his rifle that seemed to block the two of them.

Their eyes were meeting, and neither of them were averting them elsewhere.

Sunny felt butterflies inside her stomach, a warm feeling inside her that she was scared of… she didn't know what it was, and it was frightening her, she didn't know why, but being so close to Jason made her feel…

Fantastic.

"I… I-I…" she stuttered, her heart pounding out of her chest, her blood racing through her veins, and her head buzzing in the heat and moment.

_What was this feeling? It feels… weird, ecstatic, and wonderful all at the same time… and it was because of him?_

She had never felt like this, not in this way… not once in her life did she feel this… warm. She couldn't describe it. She felt like her spirit was being blown away by an invisible wind, her mind flowing out the fear. The concern. The emotions that ebbed and wove in her mind, flooding out everything that had happened to her in the past… and allowing everything in the present to take over her.

She didn't feel like her responsibility ridden self anymore, all of the duties she had to perform faltered as she was so close to Jason… he was like the key into opening her free self, locked in a cage of her father's duties that the old bastard had raised her for after these years…

She got closer to him, as he did to her, as the sun was dipping down into the horizon; they got so close that their noses were touching one another.

"I don't know why." She whispered, allowing her breath to meet his cheek, and his upon hers.

"That's all right… I know what is like, to not know why." He replied, his words met her, and she realized… he had no idea who he was, and she was scared about why she was blushing all the time.

Now she felt stupid.

"But it's okay…" he continued. " I know that someone else knows what it feels like too…" Jason spoke so convincingly, his voice not faltering, its volume loud enough for only her to hear, and its tenderness for her to feel.

Her cheeks were practically emanating bright red… and she didn't care. For once she wasn't scared to blush in front of a person… a person like Jason. He was so caring, so sensitive… so charming.

She didn't know why she had this feeling for him, and she didn't know what it was.

"Jason… what's this feeling I have?" she asked delicately, her voice sounded so weak that it would break in the wind.

He smiled, and he moved his lips to her ear, and whispered the answer to her…

"_Love_, Sunny… its _love_." His tender voice echoed in her mind, not wanting to let it go.

He dropped the rifle in his hand, and wrapped it around her waist, his other arm followed as well, and he cradling her in his arms.

Sunny closed her eyes, as did Jason… and their lips met.

Sunny could feel his smooth lips, as he could feel the touch of her cherry red lips too.

_She was kissing him! She was kissing this guy, who she had no clue of who he was, is… or will be! And she didn't care!_

She loved him. That's what she had felt about this guy, for so very long… ever since she had seen him, a bloody mess when he came out of that grave. That was why she had been crying when she had him in his arms! That was why she had stayed with him in Doc Mitchells all that time…

She was in love with him.

They kissed longer than they had thought… the sun was nearly finished going down in the horizon, and both were gasping for air…

"That was… amazing." She said, taking deep breaths for air.

He smiled at her. _God that was a gorgeous smile_.

"I love you Sunny Smiles." He admitted, still holding her in his arms.

"I love you too… Jason O'Reiley." She replied, and kissed him once more, embracing him as his lover.

Just then, Jason suddenly tripped on a protruding pebble, and Sunny broke from their kiss and screamed, but it was a short-made, for Jason landed on the slope, protecting her from the fall.

She looked at him, and he smiled again, and laughed. As did she.

She hadn't laughed in a long time… it felt great.

Come to think of it, she hadn't really laughed much at all in her life… she had never felt this good, this great, when she was born. The only person in the world that had come to love her was her mother… but she had left her with this man years ago, and never said goodbye.

He lay there, with Sunny on top of him, and he hugged her from his position on the ground, just resting for the moment.

Sunny closed her eyes, and rested her head on his muscular chest, and held his hand, combining their fingers in between one another, and she solemnly stayed there.

She didn't know why they were just laying on top of one another, but she just felt like she wanted to just _exist_, and just be left… _be_.

And she loved it.

"Jason…" she said weakly.

"Yes?"

"Are we… you know. A 'couple' now?" she asked, gingerly touching the subject, but only to be sure this wouldn't be a one-time thing.

Jason, even if she didn't look she knew that he was smiling, gazed up at the appearing stars that began to light up, the ever coming night sky.

"You know what… I think we are." He replied.

She was glad… all that time waiting for him to wake up had tortured her constantly, and it all summed up for this moment.

And they spent the night there, just holding each other.

* * *

><p>Joe looked at the spread out map that hung from one of the hideouts rock-walls, staying up due to the support of some duct tape.<p>

He had been holed up in this hideout for so long while his boys had spent the whole night scouting for the guy, going as far as Nipton to find him.

"Stanley… you checked Sloan for that !" Joe asked the man in the blue convict-shirt next to him.

"Yeh Joe… his ass ain't there, and I ain't keen on seeing those NCR soldiers there neither. !s have it closed down from a Deathclaw infestation…" Stanley replied, spitting out his hatred admitting about the NCR.

Joe stood there in a daze for a moment.

"NCR have a Deathclaw infestation? Damn… looks like Sloan is in some ! huh." Joe said, and took a swig at his beer, before returning his attentions to the map.

"What about Primm?" Joe finally asked, scratching his buzz-cut beard after cutting it down earlier.

"Nah. He ain't there… Jarvis is holed up they're doing some shit with the locals in a hotel, but the poor !s been cut off by the NCR being right outside his doorstep." Someone spoke out behind Joe, and he didn't turn around to see him, instead, he crossed out the mark of where Primm was circled at… leaving him one place left.

"He's there… that rat-! is holed up in this !hole here…" Joe muttered, gazing at the map's last location where the last of his assumptions he had left directed him like a silver lining towards him.

"Donny… what you make of this !hole now?" Joe asked the man who leant on an alcove, smoking a cigarette that was nearly at end, a black expression of skin the only detail he'd be interested to care about.

"Like you said… a !hole. A buncha farmers and hill-billies if ya askin' me, but this dude, he was found in a grave, and found shot in the head." He began, Joe suddenly cocking his head to the man's direction, seeing that he took the moment to inhale a mouthful of smoke.

"Yeh… his !-ass is hard-on, shoots like a total wu though." He finished, and Joe lost interest with him.

These poor !s don't know what the hell they're doing, and it was Joe's job to keep them in line.

"All right, we snooze for the rest of the day, cause tomorrow, we will hit that town hard… I'll go take a visit their beforehand, and see if the locals can be bribed to give up the cunt." Joe explained to them, their empty heads nodding in reply.

Joe motioned his hand to his favoured 9mm Pistol, and he drew it out, and felt a slight exhilaration when he shot the circle of which marked his next target…

_Goodspring's_.

* * *

><p>Jason hadn't slept all the night when it came to getting up the next morning, he found himself wondering what he could possibly do to make the girl that slept silently on his chest, even happier.<p>

He sat up staring at the stars all night, finding himself counting the many billions that hung up in the sky, and each one made him think of Sunny, with her bright-ginger hair unmistakable for whom it belonged too, hiding her beautiful face.

When the sun was coming above the horizon, Jason delicately motioned for his love to awaken.

"Morning…" he said.

Sunny's face rose from his chest, and the two smiled as they looked at one another.

"We should probably get going…" Jason made out, and Sunny nodded in reply, and got up from her position on top of Jason, which suddenly began to ache and suffer.

He blocked it out, wishing it wouldn't ruin the moment; he himself got up, and grabbed his nearby Varmint rifle that had been laying there for the last twelve hours or so. Sunny walked up to her loyal companion, and petted him softly, stroking back her cleanly fur with her soft hands.

Cheyenne panted in response, rolling on his back with his paws up in the air, and Sunny smiled brightly and played with her companion for a moment, rubbing her belly and laughing a little, before Cheyenne got up and shook her head and body of dust and dirt.

Meanwhile, Jason watched while he checked if his rifle hadn't been damaged overnight from Jason carelessly dropping it the afternoon before, where he had the best … and first kiss.

He could remember it now, and it made him smile, just how soft her lips felt on his, and how she glew bright red made her look even more amazing in the sun falling under the horizon that day.

He was sure that the door at the Prospectors Saloon was open, and that someone was watching them… maybe Trudy. But he left it at that, not bothering a second to ruin the moment.

Jason let his grip on the rifle loosen, and remembered something that Trudy had told him and something Sunny had said in the Saloon, before they had begun Jason's tutorial of varmint rifle-training.

Jason holstered his rifle to his back's rifle harness, and he got up from his position on the steep-like slope.

"Sunny! Didn't you say the other day; you n' Trudy mentioned something about Gecko's?" Jason asked, and then Sunny rose up, her face going pale and her eyes wide open.

"!" she cried, and began rushing off past the Saloon.

Jason hardly had enough time to catch her, she was so fast, and she zoomed through the side of the Saloon, and headed along the road.

"Come on!" she cried, urging him to run faster,.

Jason tried harder to push his legs into limberness, but it denied his response after being pressured for most of the night by Sunny. Even Cheyenne was faster than him! They were passing more houses by Goodspring's, and the road turned to the left… but Sunny kept going onward into the wilderness, passing huge boulders and craggy hills broken off in raised pieces.

In the distance, which was ever growing due to the incredible boost of agility Sunny has compared to Jason, he saw her pull out her rifle, and moves into a crouched state along a giant hill.

Jason caught her up as she was about to pass the corner, grabbing some air before saying:

"Sunny what the hell…"

"SSSHHHH!" she cried, and cut her hand in the direction of the corner, signalling something.

She allowed him to pass the corner, but put her hand on his shoulder and spoke a word.

"Gecko's." that was all she said, and it became clear…

She had rushed all the way, in such hastened time, to perform a job that had been given to her yesterday. Gecko's had proved to be one of the town's personal buggers, and if any got away, they'd come back to haunt the villagers for another day.

That was why she was here, priming her rifle, and getting ready to move ahead.

Jason sprang into action, taking his rifle from his backs harness, and pulled the bolt, checking his ammunition. _Five bullets_, good enough to kill a few of those buggers… so he heard.

On the count of three, the two nodded at one another, and stormed around the rocks corner, running towards what Jason saw, was a large, round pump-machine, with pipes coming out of the ground and fuelling what he saw, were square water deposits, small yet efficient, they were filled with plates and buckets and bottles that were capable of containing water.

Yet for some reason… there were no Gecko's.

Jason looked back at Sunny, where she too was walking toward the water-pump in confusion.

"Where are they? Have they already left?" Jason asked, but Sunny didn't reply, following something.

"Jason…" she called, waving him to come over.

Jason ran for a second, and stopped to where Sunny had called him, where she was crouching. He noticed something was on the ground, the discoloration not matching the desert dirt beneath their feet.

"What is it?" Jason asked.

"Blood…"

Jason cringed for a second, but Sunny shook her head at Jason's mislead belief.

"It's Gecko blood… something's already been here." She said, picking up a handful of the bloodied dirt, and letting it fall from her hands.

"What could it have been?" Jason asked, getting a feeling down his spine.

"From the tracks, it was human, but not like any I've seen… they match the size of a foot, not near the size of a Gecko, but the blood seems to be trailing off back to Goodspring's." she explained, examining further into the disturbances of the environment.

"How do you know all this, I can't see a thing on the ground except the blood." Jason asked, still eying the ground below for anything that seemed out of the ordinary for what the ground was like, which he was still unsure of.

"There's a disturbance with the ground, not to visible to most, but for people like me, I can check and hunt down a single pack of Gecko's by just smelling the air." Sunny explained, sounding quite the professional. No wonder everyone in Goodspring's thinks she's a great ranger.

Jason was about to ask on about her abilities, but he was disturbed by a scream coming from behind him, where a blonde-haired woman in her mid-twenties, wearing red settler clothes and leather-belts and pockets, came running towards him, her eyes streaming with tears, her face trembling in fear.

_What the hell…_

Jason couldn't determine what was scaring the woman, but he could hear her screaming out a word that he couldn't seem to recognize. "Demon!"

Sunny was calming the woman down as she came to them, but Jason had a feeling that something was wrong, and under the woman's cries, Sunny's calming words, and the constant chirping of desert insects hum and sing around them, the atmosphere just didn't seem right.

Out of the corner of his eye… something moved, above them on the hills, rocks fell down and a small avalanche followed where the thing had moved.

Jason wasn't going to let it go away just yet…

"I'll be back!" Jason cried back to Sunny, who was hugging the sobbing woman in comfort, she tried to call him back, but he couldn't hear her.

He felt compelled to see what the thing was that was retreating now.

It was fast, he could tell, but from the hill, it leads on somewhat of a trail of blood, an ooze of fresh red-blood in blood-drops leading to the thing which was retreating in the distance.

He followed the drops of blood, getting closer and closer to Goodspring's, and his gut lurched at the thought the thing would maybe attack or be a settler their…

He couldn't be sure of these thoughts until he found it.

_Why am I saying 'It'? And not person…_

For a strange reason, he didn't think on the thought, not deciding on what 'it' was until he saw first-hand _who_ it was.

He found the trail leading to Goodspring's, the southern part of it, where a big hulking shanty-house made up one of the sights of Goodspring's, but he didn't find the trail leading to the inside of the house. The trail moved on towards another white building, Jason saw that it had an angled, dark blue roof with a small tower at its front door, surrounded by white-painted wooden fencing, and a tree growing by the inside of the fence.

A door on its side shut and opened in the wind, evident that it had been slammed shut, and the door didn't lock into place with the time it had to shut, and bounced back by the force of the slam.

_Gotcha_.

Jason had heard that the school-house was infested, filled with a small collection of giant mantises, little mean and green buggers that have enough bite to paralyse you, and he heard that they have sharp teeth that can cut into skin, also the giant spiked pincers and… but he doubted all the information could be true.

Jason readied himself to go in, holding on to the handle of his M&A 9mm in its holster, as he motioned from the wreckage of a house, careful not to alarm the thing inside the schoolhouse of his presence by snapping some rotten wood, on crunching on the dirt-ground, so he treaded carefully, and closed in on the door to the school.

The fenced-door to the school had been thrown off its hinges and left to drop on to the ground beside Jason, and on his right, he saw the big trunk and branches of a dead tree, residing there for all to see.

Happy with his sneaky entrance, he entered the building, his pistol raised up, although he hadn't trained with it yet, he seemed alright with being able to use it, he just felt a little concerned with how to reload it.

He stopped his thinking to concern himself with his silent entrance, so far so good, he was crouched to the corner of the school's giant room, and breathed in silently.

_Okay… 1… 2… 3!_

He turned the corner to find that no-one was there, only being in the presence of over-turned desks and chairs, a chalk-board, a safe, a green-hued computer that still hummed with active power, and several… eaten mantises.

The room stank with rotting flesh, a smell that Jason actually recognized, and wished that he knew why, or better yet, wished why he had known.

Even more weirdly, he saw the room was lit up in a strange green hue… but the computer seemed to not have that tint of green, or the brightness to fill all the corners of the room…

Why did he have the feeling that something was in here, watching him… waiting.

A creak behind him made him turn around in an instant, seeing nothing until he looked at the ceiling, and he hesitated to what he saw…

He could only describe it as a glowing corpse … its skin emanating a bright green, with veins showing how its blood moved around its body, its eyes lost its human iris's, its skin cracked and rotting off its body even now, and it had no sign of any nose or ears, all that was left was bare, broken flesh…

It roared at him, its skin glowing impossibly brighter, and barking out a horrid stench of sickening bile and carrion, its yellow teeth like an animals, nearly sharpened and lost, he could see its gums were black and infected, and its tongue glowed luminescent green

Discerning its features, Jason guessed it was male. It reflected an appearance of possible muscle and growing masculine features that you wouldn't see in a regular woman, its shoulders broader and wider apart from each other. Its width and length matched what he had believed would be the size of a man, cutting down its form of muscle, fat and skin by many a factor.

He felt like he could be sick…

Jason dropped his gun and fell back, his heart beating fast and his mind racing at how this creature could exist, or how it could climb ceilings? But then the creature didn't move, it just looked at him, but after a few seconds, it moved further along the ceiling, and jumped down to all fours.

Jason didn't move, he couldn't… he felt a cold wave of fear and adrenaline coursing throughout his body, and still stared at the creature, which moved ever closer to Jason…

Jason could practically see ever crack, vein, wrinkle, cut and wounded skin on its face, and winced away a little from its canyon-deep eyes, as it looked at him, its breath unbearably sickening, and its glow an ever alien warmth to Jason.

The creature 'sniffed' at Jason, and Jason winced again at the thought of it smelling him if he's _good meat_… but the creature shuffled back, and made a sound like phlegm was stuck in his throat. It moved back and jumped on a table, and grabbed a magazine… reading it upside down.

"What are you?" Jason found himself asking it, and it cocked its head this way, looking at him with a blank, rotting look.

"Gu-Guuulllly…"

Jason thought he was hallucinating, but he just thought he heard the human-thing talk. Or he thought he heard something like rock grinding down on another rock. He was hallucinating, he must be… right?

"Mee Guulllly, mee a ghhooulll…" this time Jason was sure he wasn't hallucinating.

He didn't know why, but a sudden fascination of this creature, no, 'ghoul' grabbed him into asking more about itself.

"Can you read?" he asked, and then 'Gully', barked, answering his question.

Jason got up off the floor backed up a bit to the computer, giving him and Gully some safe distance apart from one another, and leaned on a table, making himself comfortable.

"I'll take that as a no… how come you're a ghoul?" Jason asked, and put his pistol away in his holster.

"Mee ghhooulll… fromm da bigg boooomm." It replied, its voice so tough and dried, Jason thought it was a rock grinding rock at first.

"The big boom?" Jason repeated Gully's words, and the ghoul looked up to him.

"Da nuukleear raadiaashun… da bigg boooomm." Gully repeated, and Jason suddenly realized what he meant.

"You mean… the nukes from two hundred years ago did this to you? Jesus Christ… that's awful."

Jason can remember now, why the world he was living in was so desolate and dead… two hundred years ago, the world plunged itself into an unbelievable nuclear war, he didn't know why, but he knew that it ended up destroying the entire world.

Jason suddenly felt sick, just realizing that the world had been destroyed by humanity itself was a tough thing to cope with… his stomach churned, his mouth tasted sickly, and his throat hurt for direly needed air.

He gasped in the air and breathed heavily about it, calming himself down, and tried to think about the good things in his life… Sunny… Sunny…

That's all that was good. He didn't realize it… but he couldn't remember anything good other than Sunny in his time that seemed like a real buzz-kill, but for some reason…

He just smiled.

All this while, Gully had gotten bored of this short silence and started chewing the burnt pages of a book that had long been ruined by dust, age, and its ash-black burning. But this did not bother Gully, he seemed to like eating them.

"Gully… have you ever been in love?" Jason had no idea why he asked the question, and a question he asked to a ghoul that may have had the attention span of a… well, Ghoul, and was a complete stranger.

Gully paused in chewing the pages of the book, and listened to the human with ears that no longer existed, and still he leaned inward with interest.

"Have you ever felt like your life has been turned upside down by just one thing… one little thing, and it has changed you forever?"

It was a soft and interesting question, and it made Gully sag his head down… respectively remembering its human's memories, looking down a lane of dreams and nightmares at the time before the nuclear fire, and he saw what the human near him was talking about.

The moment was stopped when somebody kicked in the front door of the schoolhouse, and came charging in with a varmint rifle, and a growling companion.

_It was Sunny_.

Jason was about to introduce Sunny to Gully, when she shot him and didn't hesitate to shoot, and caught it on its right shoulder, sending it to fall away from the table and clench its bleeding wound… In cold-blood and in point-blank range, she shot him through the shoulder, and he fell to the floor crying out in pain,

Gully cried in a horribly animalistic pain, writhing its legs, scratching the floor with its scarred, cut feet, and sending it in a spasm he had never seen before.

Jason couldn't believe it… but he screamed out in anger.

"SUNNY! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING!"

This caught her by surprise, and Cheyenne rose up in surprise, the dog's ear's going up, and Sunny's face lighting up with confusion.

"Wwwwhhhhyyyyy…." It whimpered, wheezing out the words like it was a worse pain than Jason's bullet wound.

"What…"

Jason bolted, and knelt down to the writhing Gully, suddenly feeling a touch of pain and pity for the creature.

He had been correct earlier, when he thought he was thinking about a person he'd been following here. But the person had the appearance of a monster, and the traits of one… but Jason could see another side of it, one that he thought might be human.

"Hey, hey, hey! Calm down! Let me help you…" Jason said to it… no, to him.

"Jason… what are you doing? That's a feral ghoul! It will kill you!" she barked, and Cheyenne copied her bark with her own.

"Gully… neeeeddd noo heelllppp…" it barked, pushing him away as it cried what he thought… were tears.

"Jesus Christ! It can talk!" she cried out, moving back in disbelief, and nearly slipped on a half-eaten Mantis body.

From what she was expressing both physically, and mentally, Jason guessed that a talking ghoul called Gully was not normal. However, he lost his way of discerning the normal from the impossible. And just went along with it.

"Gully? Is that its name?" she said, dumbfounded by him.

"Don't say it… Gully is a he, not it…" he said to Sunny, who seemed a little guilty and dumb from her actions.

"… Where does it hurt Gully?" Jason asked, impressed by how Gully took the pain, what with its weak structure and skinny limbs, and shocked at its way of portraying it in its animalistic condition.

The creature turned its body on the floor for Jason to see, continuing to spasm its legs further, but it was holding together where the wound was seeping through a green-ooze of what Jason had to believe was Gully's blood.

He tried moving his hand to the wound, but Gully caught it in its unbelievably strong hands, and stared at him with empty, milky-white eyes, and wheezed out:

"Loookkkk…" Gully pointed at the wound with its free rotting hand, Jason unsure of what it was meaning, but then a marvel occurred.

As Jason saw the wound, the ooze that emanated out of it seemed to harden, filling up the wound with a rubbery-substance… the muscles in his body seemed to regenerate further, small spider-webs forming inside the bullet wound, then they expanded and grew, forming sickly-green skin tissue, the layers of microscopic skin cells form over the wound in seconds, the only trace it left of the wound was a shaded green-scar that resembled a star.

"Amazing…" Jason said, his eyes widened in disbelief.

Sunny dropped her gun, and fainted to the floor, lifting a mist of stockpiled dust with her. With Cheyenne whimpering behind her, obviously scared of Gully. Jason felt like smiling, but held it in.

"Gully… gud." Gully said, and rose up from his position on the wooden-floor, and resumed a hunched, four-legged position that made him resemble an animal.

"How did you…" Jason started, but was interrupted.

"Mee, noo noooww." Gully said, wheezing the words out once more.

"Gully… what are you?" Jason asked.

"Gully… isss aa gghoul, hoo-man." Gully replied, and then spat out something disgusting that he didn't want to know what it was.

_Gully the Ghoul? Seems a little too fitting for him…_

"My name is Jason… sorry about my friend here shooting you." He apologized, pointing towards Sunny.

"Raghr?" it wheezed, a weak roar, and Jason realized he didn't understand.

"Oh… umm, 'she sad for hurting, you', ah?" Jason repeated. But Gully cocked its head, and suddenly barked at him with his claws reaching him.

"AAAHHH!" Jason cried, but then Gully rolled on the floor, like he was dying, throwing his feet in the air.

Jason realized that the Ghoul was laughing, the strange sound from its mouth sounded like he was choking, but he too laughed at his little scare. The ghoul had little intelligence, and acted like a child, maybe a dog, so Jason had to go about this simple for him.

"Are you a-lone?" Jason asked.

Gully looked back at him, his face suddenly felt like it gained a few pounds and dropped down in a sulk. Jason had to think quickly, before he could see this infant-intelligent cry down or maybe do another unbelievable thing and maybe blow up his head.

"Would Gully, like too come and follow me around?" Jason quickly replied, and Gully's head raised quickly, its face cracked and its lips stretched, Jason guessed it was a smile.

"Yooo friend off Guulllly?" he asked dryly, cocking his head.

"Yes Gully, I'm a friend." Jason replied, and held out his hand to the Ghoul.

The Ghoul didn't understand, but its human did…

Gully creaked its arm out to the human, and opened its hand from a sticky bond of its fingers, and he grabbed it. The human made his hand go up and down, and it looked stupid to the Ghoul, but his human told him what it meant… his human was good at that.

_This is a hand-shake, where two grab their hands, and present their friendship with one another, by participating in a motion with their hand. Shaking it. So it is called a, hand-shake._

Gully didn't know what it's human meant… but he understood one thing. He understood that it had a friend, a human friend, not a human that threw things at him, shot him, cursed at him, try to hunt him for sport, or capture him for some human 'science project'. It was a friend who can look at him without disgust, or disbelief, but a friend who can talk to him like he was a real human being.

It made him feel… human… before he didn't like it… not knowing what it means to be human… but the Ghoul in Gully suddenly figured. 'I don't need to know what it means to be a human, I can just be one.'

This human… Hay-bon… Yay-zon… Jay-sun? Yes, Jay-sun… was one of a kind.

And it was a good kind.

* * *

><p>Sunny woke up with a start, she gasped in surprise and frightened Jason, who had been sat next to her by what she recognized, was Doctor Mitchell's hospital bed.<p>

_Now he was waiting for me this time._

She smiled at the small ironic situation, and Jason asked.

"You okay?"

"Yeh… I had the weirdest dream of a talking feral ghoul… it shone with the strangest glow of green…" she stopped midsentence when she saw the glowing-green ghoul sniff at one of Doctor Mitchells books, and her eyes widened.

"GHOUL!" she kicked herself back to the scaffold of the bed, and hugged the wall in fear.

She tried to reach for a gun, but she couldn't find her rifle where it normally was on her back. She winced away as it turned to face her, with its disgustingly rotten face that was highlighted with a sick radioactive green.

"Sunny. Calm down! He's a friend." Jason cried, holding her hands and looking at her in the eye.

She hated them… she hated ghouls and she didn't want to be around them. They were horrible mutations of what were real people, who suffered the nuclear holocaust that was nothing short of a miracle, but they all soon suffered the fate of ferocious insanity… and that's what scares her the most.

She cried out, with deep gasps following soon enough as she felt tears roll down her cheeks, but Jason put her head to his chest, and let her cry. She heard his heartbeat; even under her cries she felt his warm embrace.

"It's all right. It's all right Sunny… I'm here. Nothing is going to hurt you… and neither is he."

She heard him loud and clear… but he didn't understand. This fear wasn't like blushing in front of people, nor was it the kind of being bullied as a child.

This was a nightmarish fear that kept her up for weeks at a time… suffering terrible, and inescapable nights of hiding in a corner of dark room, holding a gun for hours until the morning came and she would visit Dr. Mitchell for mental conditioning sessions.

She remembered that day… that awful rainy night when a horribly mutated band of ghouls came into town, one of them glowing just like this one was… and they hunted down everyone in the town, and all she could do was freeze up and see them hurt the people she loved and protected.

The Glowing one, a ghoul that glowed with unbelievable radiation, had charged at her… pinned her down to the floor… and bit deep into her, she was only twelve… and she felt its infected teeth bite into her flesh, every millimetre it went through burned her body alive with infectious radiation, its touch not only seared her flesh, but it made her sick too.

Had it not been for her father… she would have been dead by now…

This thing wasn't meant, allowed, nor should be alive whatsoever in any way on god's Earth…

But Jason insisted that it would not hurt her… but she felt her scar on her neck now, almost invisible and healed, she could still feel its small fire burn in her skin, the radioactive poisoning that sent her ill for years… and still haunted her even now.

"Izz sheee gud?" Gully croaked, and Jason responded without looking at him.

"Yeh… she's gonna be okay Gully. I guess all of us have our own demons to fall, and sadly, she has to face hers." Jason replied, and hugged her tightly as her crying fit continued for a long, long time.

When she finally raised her head, Jason could see her eyes, full of hate, fear, and desperation. Something that he hadn't expected with Sunny, but he could see it alright, and he too, can sense something similar in him, locked away inside of him.

"Sunny… Gully, is not, I repeat, not. A threat. He will do nothing to you, and I will make sure that I stand in between the both of you, got it?" Jason assured her, and she nodded in reply, but the nod was weak and slow, her fear freezing her in place so much.

Sunny didn't like it, but she could trust Jason, the one person who had made her life seem important, and relieved…

But this was something that might prove a problem in the future. She was sure of that…

* * *

><p>Joe Cobb walked up the hill, cursing his lack of movement these past few days… but he decided the hour before that he would pay a visit to this town, and he would see to it that his little plot to bribe these yokels to choke out the information on where he was hiding.<p>

The ! Chet, held something key to the plot that the big man in the NCRCF Prison HQ, was planning for the NCR, to get back at them for all they have done.

He'd heard the boss and his plan, and he licked it a lot, and volunteered himself and his own chain-gang to finding the key to the plan. He agreed under the sole condition that he would bring back the item that Chet was holding. This bastard had been a snake, and had slithered his way out of Joe's grip to many times…

Now the !ing ! was gonna get it.


End file.
